The greatest teacher, failure is.
--- Yoda
Friday night, I lost a game of Civ7 in the Modern Age, while playing as Pachacuti. Given how many people continue to post about how they are beating the game at Deity, I feel humbled to have lost this game. But I want to share some experiences and lessons learned, so that others might possibly benefit.
Facts: I lost on turn 100 in Modern, when Tubman completed the World Bank. Continents Plus map, standard size, Sovreign difficulty. I had collected 15 relics and was starting to build the World's Fair (about 10 turns to go). I had also finished the Economic Legacy Path, starting to send my own Great Banker around the world. I had chosen America as my Modern civ; Tubman had chosen Buganda. Confucius, playing Qing (naturally), had completed 2 parts of the Science Legacy Path. I was leading on overall Legacy Points, accumulated through all 3 ages.
Start of Modern: If you've read the thread on fast science victories, they recommend trying to befriend IP's early, and Scientific IP's especially. I did some of that, carrying over a decent amount of influence from Exploration. I didn't slot any mementos, though. When I play a leader for the first time, I tend not to use mementos so that I can learn what the leader's strengths and weaknesses are. I did send out 3 explorers as soon as possible, since I'm open to winning by culture.
Modern Distractions: I think that some of the reasons that this game got away from me were distractions, pursuit of shiny objects. These included:
Diplomacy Errors: Yes, I got some rail stations built and factories going. I really enjoy the Economic victory, in other playthroughs. Yet, I was hindering myself by accepting alliances with Augustus (Prussia) and Isabella (Mexico). They often dragged me into wars, which broke my trade routes. The wars didn't cost me units (or the production to replace them), but the number of available factory resources was lower. I wasn't diligent about restoring trade with an enemy once the war ended.
As a result, it was harder to build up my factory resources / railroad tycoon points quickly, because my factories weren't full.
What's more, around turn 80 or so, Trung Trac declared on me again, due to an alliance. She had her capital right on my border, in her last settlement from her former core. It felt good to stomp that town, except... where was her capital now? Somewhere in Distant Lands? I can't send the Great Banker if I don't know where the relocated capital is. Compounding that error, I had lost track of where Hatshepsut's capital was (somewhere in DL).
By turn 60 or 70, I had 14 relics. But because I had not beelined Hegemony, I actually had another hurdle to cross before I could start the WF. Lots of success in relic hunting, but I lacked the civic. I did notice that Harriet was churning through the factory resources, moving from 300 to 400 in that timeframe. But her core cities were behind a long mountain range (running north-south) along my western frontier. Too late, I realized that I didn't have a good land route to invade.
In the final screens, it showed that I had completed two Legacy Paths, but not won the game. I had the most points, but someone else achieved the victory.
It turns out my Great Banker was following Harriet's around the world. Without even knowing it! It would be nice to have some visibility to the VC progress, to know how many World Bank branches she had already built. I don't think they can be destroyed... can they?
Does the AI try to win? That question has been debated in several threads, over in the General Discussions. My answer (for patch 1.2.4) is yes. The AI do recognize a victory condition, and works to achieve that VC. They do not -- as some have said -- gang up on the human player, simply because the human is ahead. It has been my experience in other franchise games (Civ3, Civ6, BERT) that the AI will try to win when it can *build* its way to a victory. No, the AI does not, and did not, present a significant military threat to me. Yes, some AI players had achieved military legacy points after choosing an ideology. This behavior by the AI, trying to win by achieving a VC before the human, is exactly what I want the AI to do. It matches my personal expectations/preferences.
Can one play Civ7 like a sandbox? Perhaps at lower difficulty settings. I was not beelining towards any single VC. I had built Transoceanic Voyage for Science, I was collecting factory/railroad resources, I was collecting relics. Even though I had not chosen an ideology, I picked up a few settlements through the wars. I made friends/allies and I broke alliances. If one plays slowly enough (turn 100), the AI will try to beat you. Although I'm less of a sandbox person, I appreciate that some CivFanatics are. Part of my journey towards improving my play is to learn where I need to focus, where my play needs to improve. I don't play the highest difficulty level in any Civ game, because I don't want to have to play only one way (optimally) to win, or survive.
Lessons Learned:
--- Yoda
Friday night, I lost a game of Civ7 in the Modern Age, while playing as Pachacuti. Given how many people continue to post about how they are beating the game at Deity, I feel humbled to have lost this game. But I want to share some experiences and lessons learned, so that others might possibly benefit.
Facts: I lost on turn 100 in Modern, when Tubman completed the World Bank. Continents Plus map, standard size, Sovreign difficulty. I had collected 15 relics and was starting to build the World's Fair (about 10 turns to go). I had also finished the Economic Legacy Path, starting to send my own Great Banker around the world. I had chosen America as my Modern civ; Tubman had chosen Buganda. Confucius, playing Qing (naturally), had completed 2 parts of the Science Legacy Path. I was leading on overall Legacy Points, accumulated through all 3 ages.
Start of Modern: If you've read the thread on fast science victories, they recommend trying to befriend IP's early, and Scientific IP's especially. I did some of that, carrying over a decent amount of influence from Exploration. I didn't slot any mementos, though. When I play a leader for the first time, I tend not to use mementos so that I can learn what the leader's strengths and weaknesses are. I did send out 3 explorers as soon as possible, since I'm open to winning by culture.
Modern Distractions: I think that some of the reasons that this game got away from me were distractions, pursuit of shiny objects. These included:
- Taking a detour into American civics, to build my UB and UQ
- Taking the capital, big and bold, sitting just to my south
Diplomacy Errors: Yes, I got some rail stations built and factories going. I really enjoy the Economic victory, in other playthroughs. Yet, I was hindering myself by accepting alliances with Augustus (Prussia) and Isabella (Mexico). They often dragged me into wars, which broke my trade routes. The wars didn't cost me units (or the production to replace them), but the number of available factory resources was lower. I wasn't diligent about restoring trade with an enemy once the war ended.
As a result, it was harder to build up my factory resources / railroad tycoon points quickly, because my factories weren't full.
What's more, around turn 80 or so, Trung Trac declared on me again, due to an alliance. She had her capital right on my border, in her last settlement from her former core. It felt good to stomp that town, except... where was her capital now? Somewhere in Distant Lands? I can't send the Great Banker if I don't know where the relocated capital is. Compounding that error, I had lost track of where Hatshepsut's capital was (somewhere in DL).
By turn 60 or 70, I had 14 relics. But because I had not beelined Hegemony, I actually had another hurdle to cross before I could start the WF. Lots of success in relic hunting, but I lacked the civic. I did notice that Harriet was churning through the factory resources, moving from 300 to 400 in that timeframe. But her core cities were behind a long mountain range (running north-south) along my western frontier. Too late, I realized that I didn't have a good land route to invade.
In the final screens, it showed that I had completed two Legacy Paths, but not won the game. I had the most points, but someone else achieved the victory.
It turns out my Great Banker was following Harriet's around the world. Without even knowing it! It would be nice to have some visibility to the VC progress, to know how many World Bank branches she had already built. I don't think they can be destroyed... can they?
Does the AI try to win? That question has been debated in several threads, over in the General Discussions. My answer (for patch 1.2.4) is yes. The AI do recognize a victory condition, and works to achieve that VC. They do not -- as some have said -- gang up on the human player, simply because the human is ahead. It has been my experience in other franchise games (Civ3, Civ6, BERT) that the AI will try to win when it can *build* its way to a victory. No, the AI does not, and did not, present a significant military threat to me. Yes, some AI players had achieved military legacy points after choosing an ideology. This behavior by the AI, trying to win by achieving a VC before the human, is exactly what I want the AI to do. It matches my personal expectations/preferences.
Can one play Civ7 like a sandbox? Perhaps at lower difficulty settings. I was not beelining towards any single VC. I had built Transoceanic Voyage for Science, I was collecting factory/railroad resources, I was collecting relics. Even though I had not chosen an ideology, I picked up a few settlements through the wars. I made friends/allies and I broke alliances. If one plays slowly enough (turn 100), the AI will try to beat you. Although I'm less of a sandbox person, I appreciate that some CivFanatics are. Part of my journey towards improving my play is to learn where I need to focus, where my play needs to improve. I don't play the highest difficulty level in any Civ game, because I don't want to have to play only one way (optimally) to win, or survive.
Lessons Learned:
- Refuse most alliances. As I look at this game, I don't think that I benefited enough from the alliances. Yes, it's a free open borders, so that my forces can move through on the way to fight a war. But getting dragged into wars, even faraway wars, was a net drain. I grabbed some island towns, yes. Not much benefit.
- If pursuing the Culture Victory, beeline Hegemony. Some of the races to relics will go well and some will not. But I should come back to the civ-specific civics after I take care of business.
- Consider using mementos to get a jump start on each age. If an AI player needs 80 turns to build its way to a VC, then try to end the game before that happens.
